The development dimension
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publishers, music ensembles, etc. — that were previously state-financed have been forced to make their way in the private marketplace, and many have not been able to survive the transition. Artists and professionals from the creative industries, who were used to being full-time employees, now have to compete and look for new but limited opportunities in the private sector. Some municipalities in Eastern Europe are now looking to the cultural industries as an avenue to becoming “creative cities”. An example is St. Petersburg in the Russian Federation. However, despite this city’s attraction as the location of the Hermitage, one of the world’s finest art museums, some problems remain. Over-reliance on a single organization to entice tourism has tended to mask the lack of an appropriate scheme for cultural activities in the city. The way forward could be to introduce creative industries in city planning by supporting small-scale cultural producers by setting-up creative clusters with suitable institutional support for the development of culture-related SMEs.70 Lately, some Eastern European countries have taken a more proactive approach to enhancing culture and creative industries in their development strategies. Latvia: A definition of the creative industries was included for the first time in the Guidelines for the State Cultural Policy of Latvia for 2006-2015,71 and the study “Creative Industries of Latvia”.72 Economically, the most successful sectors are the publishing (literature and media) and polygraph industry (37 per cent of the total turnover of all creative industries in 2006) and advertising (27 per cent). However, the priority fields identified by the Ministry of Culture are design and audiovisual media because of their export potential. The study Creative Industry Research, Update of Statistics (2008) shows that the annual turnover of the industries and the number of employees in the creative industries are constantly growing, totalling about 63,500 people in 2006, two-thirds of whom work in the capital, Riga.73 However, both the publishing and tourism industries anticipate large-scale bankruptcies74 due to the dramatic decline in book sales during 2008-2009. The Ministry of Education and Science and its subordinate institutions are responsible for developing the creative industry, as is the Ministry of 70 71 72 73 74 75 76
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Culture’s Policy Planning Department. Moldova: Moldova’s entertainment business lags far behind neighbouring countries, especially Russia and Romania, and it is influenced by their entertainment markets. The publicity market is developing fast, increasing each year by 25 to 40 per cent. In 2006 the advertising/publicity business accounted for more than $14 million in sales, with about 80 per cent of the funds brought into the country by foreign agencies. A non-governmental organization, OWH TV Studio, organizes workshops for young professionals in the cinema sector as well as international documentary film festivals and summer schools on film production with the participation of international experts.75 Poland: According to the National Strategy for the Development of Culture in 2004-2013, the value added by creative industries reached €17.3 billion, or 5.2 per cent of national GDP. The field of cinema took an important step forward with the 2005 Cinematography Act, which created the Polish Film Institute, which acts de facto as a non-departmental public body. The act provides support up to 50 per cent of the film budget — or up to 90 per cent in the case of low-budget or artistic films.76 This brought a rapid increase in the number of films produced in Poland and enticed foreign filmmakers to engage in co-productions or utilize film services in Poland. As part of the process of reform of cultural policy, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage organized the Congress of Polish Culture in Krakow in September 2009, involving artists, academics and politicians in a debate on the development of Polish culture. In preparation for the Congress, 15 research groups were commissioned to prepare reports on various fields of culture, from financing to promotion of Polish culture abroad. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage is actively involved in the preparations for the European Capital of Culture 2016, several cities have declared their interest and the first stage of the contest is the evaluation of candidate cities on the national level, a process scheduled to be concluded in autumn 2010. Romania: In recent years, Romania has become an attractive location for films, videos and advertising productions. However, the local film industry has been hurt by the dwindling number of cinemas in the country, from about
See O’Connor (2005:244-258) and UNCTAD Creative Economy and Industries Newsletter, No. 5, April 2007. Cabinet Order No. 264, dated 18 April 2006. Ministry of Culture, Republic of Latvia, Creative Industries in Latvia (BICEPS, 2007). See http://www.km.gov.lv. Source: Creative Industry Research. Update of Statistics, 2008. Compendium: Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe. “Culture industries: policies and programmes”. http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/latvia.php?aid=426. See http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/moldova. For more information see Polish Film Institute: http://www.pisf.pl/en.
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